Chakra Shock said:

Why does it seem impossible for a human to discover a Universal Truth? Are we not one with the universe?

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smack said:

When in doubt, turn to hedonism.

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unam sanctum said:

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No, the question is why you would try to add meaning. You just established there is none. Trying to add meaning is like trying to add wings to the human being: you end up with a contraption that might work, but it doesn't complete the human being in any way.

Why not just accept that life is meaningless? It frees your mind of one (big) thing that turns out to be fake, and you can use the capacity you just freed up to gain more knowledge.

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another question is why would you think that an artificial addition that allows you to do something you otherwise could not have done is worthless (implied by your larger argument) or any less complete than a lack of that addition? 

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akira_akuma said:

it's gonna be funny when the nihilists in this thread have to face death. i'll LOL.

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Chakra Shock said:

OP: how could something exist that does not exist? How could there BE "no" meaning?

But I still get your point... some how there is a universal truth, whether it be a meaning or a lack there of. I prefer to think that the universal truth is a positive one, or a meaning... not something that we need to create bust something inherent to being and I try to live my life in accordance with this universality.

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Look man, I grew up in a religious family and I always believed that life had great meaning and that god was the source of everything and that it is our duty to worship him. This belief caused me to completely neglect the things of the world and I put all my energy and trust into a fantasy instead. This has been detrimental for me. It has caused me to become isolated from society and it has actually affected my mental and physical health. So, discovering the truth about life the other night was a huge moment for me. It's like the 2cc lifted the veil for me. It shattered ALL forms of conditioning that I previously carried and it revealed the blatant truth to me, right in front of my face with no sugar coating. I was just sitting in my room contemplating life when this happened. There was no music, no movies, no nothing. Just me tripping and thinking. And the 2cc showed me everything that night; it showed me all that there was to know.

That's where my spiritual search stopped and I am so grateful that I have finally found the truth. This is the single most liberating moment in my life to date. I'm just happy to be freed from delusion.

ConfettiHead said:

Look man, I grew up in a religious family and I always believed that life had great meaning and that god was the source of everything and that it is our duty to worship him. This belief caused me to completely neglect the things of the world and I put all my energy and trust into a fantasy instead. This has been detrimental for me. It has caused me to become isolated from society and it has actually affected my mental and physical health. So, discovering the truth about life the other night was a huge moment for me. It's like the 2cc lifted the veil for me. It shattered ALL forms of conditioning that I previously carried and it revealed the blatant truth to me, right in front of my face with no sugar coating. I was just sitting in my room contemplating life when this happened. There was no music, no movies, no nothing. Just me tripping and thinking. And the 2cc showed me everything that night; it showed me all that there was to know.

That's where my spiritual search stopped and I am so grateful that I have finally found the truth. This is the single most liberating moment in my life to date. I'm just happy to be freed from delusion.

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Religious people seem to think that without a god, a heaven, or a universal truth life is meaningless. They are right that life is inherently meaningless but they're missing the point. But when you dump all of the cultural religious teachings and embrace the absurd nature of our reality then you can truly be free to create meaning.

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Dostoevsky once wrote: “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse. For if indeed existence precedes essence, one will never be able to explain one’s action by reference to a given and specific human nature; in other words, there is no determinism – man is free, man is freedom. Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimise our behaviour. Thus we have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. – We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. The existentialist does not believe in the power of passion. He will never regard a grand passion as a destructive torrent upon which a man is swept into certain actions as by fate, and which, therefore, is an excuse for them. He thinks that man is responsible for his passion. Neither will an existentialist think that a man can find help through some sign being vouchsafed upon earth for his orientation: for he thinks that the man himself interprets the sign as he chooses. He thinks that every man, without any support or help whatever, is condemned at every instant to invent man. As Ponge has written in a very fine article, “Man is the future of man.” That is exactly true. Only, if one took this to mean that the future is laid up in Heaven, that God knows what it is, it would be false, for then it would no longer even be a future. If, however, it means that, whatever man may now appear to be, there is a future to be fashioned, a virgin future that awaits him – then it is a true saying. But in the present one is forsaken.

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thedeadwalkk said:

This will sound cliche, but life is what you make of it. If you want to make it out to be meaningless than sure that's what it will be. But if you want to experience life, enjoy it, hate it, and feel all the feels than that's what it will be.

Life has it's up and downs, but I guess that's why you call it life.

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Chakra Shock said:

That's an amazing realization ConfettiHead. I guess religious dogma can be a false explanation for truth.

I still think there is true insight in religion, when we find it for ourselves instead of forcing it upon others. Religion can help open people's doors of perceptions to the connectedness of life, whether that be by explaining a core energy called God or by a unifying Emptiness in all form.

I really like the ideas of the transcendentalists of the 18th and early 19th century. They discovered for themselves that all of Nature is united in one flow, much like the dao.

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Yeah, I like those ideas too. I still see life as a single living organism even though there is no intrinsic meaning. It's like what somebody else said here, I don't matter as an individual, but life still matters as a whole. Either way, I think we can all agree that life is one peculiar son of a bitch. 

ConfettiHead said:

Either way, I think we can all agree that life is one peculiar son of a bitch. 

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True that, amigo.